The Musical Score for
SON OF A
WANTED MAN

The
Musical Score is always the part that makes me the most nervous
and it's always the part I discover that I have the least
to be nervous about. When we first started the project Charlie
mentioned that a few of his friends in the music business
could put out the word that we were looking for a composer
and I was very glad to take him up on it. I had made inquires
from my own contacts in the film business and gotten back
some very unencouraging responses; everyone was telling me
that they could do it for less money, do it in less time,
and explaining how they could get away with less quality.
Less was not the word I wanted to hear … especially with something
as important as music. Charlie came through with Phil Shenale,
a wonderfully lively dude who's mantra was definitely "more"
rather than "less." We told him we were interested in working
with him and then we disappeared for several years while we
went through the laborious process of editing Son of a Wanted
Man in our spare time. As luck would have it he was still
interested when we finally finished.

The
Music in Son of a Wanted Man, as with the dialog or
the sound effects, is as essential an element of the show.
So, as with the dialog and sound effects, only an original
score would do. As mentioned in the HISTORY
of Son of a Wanted Man, we were lucky to find (and
keep interested over a very long time) John Philip Shenale.
His extensive work composing, arranging and producing for
artists like Janet Jackson, Tori Amos, Willie DeVille and
Bette Midler combined with his exceptional skills with virtually
any keyboard instrument have allowed us to develop a vibrant
and evocative musical score.

When
creating a score you usually block out themes; different pieces
of music, each for a selection of ideas that make up your
story. You might have a "historical" theme that plays behind
a section of material that communicates history, our narrator
or say, in a film, perhaps a montage of newsreels … you might
also sneak it in when a character, like a US President, does
something to make history. That's a subtle way of reminding
the audience of the connection between the two. Most often
the several major characters have themes based on who they
are. A typical hero theme would be Raiders of the Lost Ark
or the James Bond Theme. A villain might also have a theme
and if, for a moment, you think that James Bond is going to
set off the atom bomb himself for evil or selfish reasons,
a composer might mix both the hero and villain's themes together.
It's sort of like an aural chemistry set; you mix up the potion
that you need at the moment from a kit of (hopefully) well
designed components.

The
score is, to a great extent, the sound of the way you want
the audience to feel. It also creates a tone for the entire
piece, setting the stage in a very subtle way. I have always
hated most of the music that went into westerns because
it always seemed to be trying so hard to be "western" that
it painted itself into a corner when it came to expressing
certain emotions -- actually that is true about a lot of
issues surrounding westerns in both fiction and drama. The
composition and instrumentation of western scores rarely
have anything to do with the kind of music that was being
played at the time, so in my mind they are pretty useless.
Phil came up with a sound that communicated a feeling of
the actual historical period while still maintaining enough
complexity to get to all the nuances of feeling that were
hiding in the production. It was a wonderful collaboration;
we would give Phil pieces of the show, he would write the
music and, if necessary, we would edit around his work so
that he was never pressed for time, or mix around his work
so that, whenever possible, you could hear the meaningful
parts. It was an opportunity that you really never get in
film where the picture is like a conductor, marking out
the time available with dictatorial authority.

The
unique sound developed for Son of a Wanted owes a
lot the the instruments chosen to play the various themes
and bridges. In addition to the traditional violin, chello
and bass strings, a variety of different pianos were used
to add a haunting and historic feeling to the music. Several
different guitars were also used, sometimes alone and sometimes
in conjunction with one another to give the score an enormous
depth and range.

Two
the most interesting instruments included a mallet piano
and a Chamberlin piano. The Former is literally a piano
frame stripped of the box and legs. The strings are wedged
and dampered with rubber and are struck with felt mallets.
The sound is a very unique, almost mechanical sound which
really helps imply the appropriate time period to the music.
It makes the music sound somehow, as if it were really recorded
in the 1880's. The Chamberlin is one of the first music
samplers which could playback recorded sounds by simply
playing the keys of a piano. This breakthrough would allow
a musician to play a flute or the drums without actually
having to learn each instrument.

As
with our Sound Effects, Phils' music is extremely detailed
and often heavily layered, with several instruments playing
similar themes and others brought in to fill in spaces or
add counterpoint. It was really fascinating to work with
the raw tracks during the Mix of the show as we could adjust
each musical element separately, allowing us a fantastic
amount of flexability. It was really funny hear myself in
Phils' studio shaking my head and saying "I don't know
how you do it" only later to have Phil listening to
a complicated sound effects scene and saying "I don't
know how you do it!"

Once
the score was finished we MIXED
the show and prepared it for mastering.